BlogPoll Week 1

Hurray, that's the poll hurray. If you're interested, you can see all the individual ballots here. Now on to the extracurriculars. First up are the teams which spur the most and least disagreement between voters as measured by standard deviation. Note that the standard deviation charts halt at #25 when looking for the lowest, otherwise teams that everyone agreed were terrible (say, Eastern Michigan) would all be at the top.

Now on to the blog-specific rankings. First up are "Mr. Bold" and "Mr. Numb Existence." The former goes to the voter with the ballot most divergent from the poll at large. The number you see is the average difference between a person's opinion of a team and the poll's opinion.

Update! The preseason poll got four additional ballots and Heismanpundit claimed the top slot in Mr. Bold with his effort. Raise your hand if you're surprised.

Mr. Numb Existence is The Mississippi State Sports Blog, which submitted a creepily accurate ballot. The only differences betwen the MSSB's ballot and the poll at large are two transpositions--Auburn and Florida State swap spots, as do Pittsburgh and Virginia. It's also worth noting that Straight Bangin' finished fifth despite placing his own team at #13, way, way off the poll's Michigan position (more on that later).

Next we have the Coulter/Krugman Award and the Straight Bangin' Award, which are again different sides of the same coin. The CKA and SBA go to the blogs with the highest and lowest bias rating, respectively. Bias rating is calculated by subtracting the blogger's vote for his own team from the poll-wide average. A high number indicates you are shameless homer. A low number indicates that you suffer from an abusive relationship with your football team.

The inaugural winner of The CK Awards is The Enlightened Spartan, who put a team with no defense whatsoever and a quarterback more fragile than Charles Rogers at #17 because he likes the helmets. Extra bonus ridiculous bias: Michigan debuts at #20. A completely shameful effort. Congratulations, ES, you've disgraced us all.

Update! Rejiggering of the poll due to the extra ballots garnered more Michigan State support than Alabama support, pushing 'Bama blogger Journalism Is For Rockstars into the position of greatest shameful bias.

Unsurprisingly, the winner of the Straight Bangin' Award is Straight Bangin' for placing the Wolverines at #13, more than seven points fewer than the poll-wide consensus.

Coming next week: "Mr. Manic-Depressive" and "Mr. Stubborn" for the voters who change their ballots the most and least from week to week.